The Bet
by Gift of the Dragons
Summary: A Halloween one-shot. Shannon made Gibbs a bet years ago, and now the team is making bets too. T for unusual themes.


Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS, the _Lion King_, Dorothy Gales, _The Wizard of Oz_, _The Prince and the Showgirl _or Marilyn Monroe.

Author's Note: I have_**no**_ idea how this story ended up like this. It went from something innocent to… cross-dressing. How that happened, I have no idea.

Gibbs knelt down in front of his daughter and rearranged her costume. He didn't understand Halloween that much himself, but it made his daughter happy, which made him happy. The little girl was dressed up as a lion cub, her face peeking out from its mouth. She giggled as her father's hand tugged the head-shaped hood back into place before falling crookedly against her shoulder once more.

Gibbs sighed and stood up, choosing instead to admire Kelly in her lion costume. Shannon leaned against him, one arm wrapped lazily around his waist. Kelly giggled again at her parents before imitating a lion's roar and jumping onto her father's leg, clinging onto it like a spider to a branch. Gibbs smiled and lifted the girl up. There was a quick flash of light and, as it cleared, Gibbs saw Shannon lowering a camera, a smile spreading across her face.

Kelly whispered something in her father's ear and he set her down. She ran somewhere else, leaving her parents together. Shannon smiled as an idea came to her. Gibbs noticed this and knew that, while Shannon meant well, not all of her ideas were good.

"What's on your mind?" he asked, feeling slight fear at her answer. While he wouldn't' admit it, he was afraid of his wife's 'good ideas'.

"Do you want to make a bet?" Gibbs looked at Shannon in surprise; she hated gambling, as her cousin died in a casino by a disgruntled customer a few years before.

"All right," he conceded. "What did you have in mind?"

"We take Kelly out trick-or-treating; first one to steal a piece of her candy wins. Loser buys the other dinner."

Gibbs knew that Shannon loved candy, and that their daughter had inherited that sweet tooth from her. He knew that Kelly wouldn't be happy to know that her parents had made a bet over her candy, yet he still agreed.

Still, it made Shannon happy and they did have a good dinner the next night, even if Gibbs was paying for it.

* * *

Gibbs set down the photo against his desk. If rarely, if _ever_, brought personal belongings to work, but he had to this time; Halloween was around again, and this was surprisingly one NCIS's most active periods. The older agent needed a reminder that there was still some good in the world, even if that reminder was tinged with sorrow.

Faint footsteps alerted Gibbs to someone entering the bullpen. DiNozzo and McGee were walking hand in hand, each with stony smiles set into their faces. It didn't take a genius to tell that these two were angry at something. Gibbs saw Ziva smirk before she caught his glance and returned to her work.

The senior agent was dressed in a blue-and-white pinafore with a white blouse underneath, with brown pigtails falling onto the front of his shirt. The famous ruby slippers were on his feet, forcing the man to walk carefully on the raised heels. The probie was wearing a short blonde wig, the hair curling up around the ends. He wore a white spaghetti strap dress with lace sleeves. The dress covered his legs and ended just below his ankles, where a pair of white heels adorned his feet.

"What bet did you two lose?" Gibbs asked bluntly.

"Hers," Tony grumbled, deftly pointing at Ziva. A grin began to slide back onto her face before she caught it. Tony let go of McGee and sat in his chair, playing with one of the pigtails. "We had a bet to see who could drink the most wine before passing out. The losers would have to dress up as girls, or in Ziva's case, Charlie Chaplin." McGee, who had since gone to his own desk, picked up from where Tony left off.

""As you can see, Ziva won by five glasses, and told us that we had to dress up as Dorothy Gales and Marilyn Monroe." He made a face and muttered "Don't know which was worse."

Gibbs shook his head in disbelief; the similarities were uncanny. The photo caught his eye again, and as Gibbs looked at his daughter again, who was five years old at the time the photo was taken, he wondered what she would have been for Halloween this year.


End file.
